


A Bedtime Story

by autumnesquirrel



Category: Teen Wolf (TV)
Genre: Fairy Tales, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-02-15
Updated: 2013-02-15
Packaged: 2017-11-29 08:37:33
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,182
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/684977
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/autumnesquirrel/pseuds/autumnesquirrel
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Just before bed on her ninth birthday Kate’s father, Gerard, took her onto his lap and told her a bedtime story she had never heard before.</p>
            </blockquote>





	A Bedtime Story

**Author's Note:**

> All sorts of bad things are alluded to, but very few of them are truly on screen.
> 
> Beta read by [relenafanel](http://archiveofourown.org/users/relenafanel/pseuds/relenafanel) who's suggestions much improved the story and its impact. All mistakes are still my own.

Just before bed on her ninth birthday Kate’s father, Gerard, took her onto his lap and told her a bedtime story she had never heard before.

_Once upon a time one long cold winter a lord, his lady, and their toddler son were riding home from visiting friends._

It was her favorite story.

_Now, at that time much of the world was covered in deep silent forests ruled by wolves, not men, and one of these stretches of wild land lay between them and their closest neighbors._

The one she asked for every night.

_The lord’s son was only just old enough to travel with them and their neighbors had not only held a feast in his honor but had also gifted the lord with a fine young horse to be trained beside his son so that he might ride in style and this horse they led behind them on a line._

And for an entire year every night her father indulged her.

_The lord and his family rode in a carriage, the lord at the reins, and the lady and his son well wrapped in furs inside._

On Kate’s tenth birthday her father told her she was too old for fairy tales.

_That winter was harsh with more snow coming every day and few warm days to break the hold winter had on the land and the wolves were hungry. The lord and his friend had spoken of working to thin the pack some, but they had not yet done anything. The lord did not think he had anything to fear because he was strong and they were traveling quickly, but he underestimated the strength a wolf’s hunger, and the power of a large pack, and as they reached the edge of the forest almost to their home the pack came down upon them. The wolves killed the colt and dragged it off into the woods, and spooked the horses pulling the carriage such that the carriage itself rocked side to side so violently that the lady and her son were thrown out the door onto the ground. The lord carried with him a bow, and the lady a dagger, and between them they fought back the wolves until they were all dead or run off, but in the confusion they lost sight of their son._

He started to tell her true stories instead.

_When all was finally quiet they looked for him, of course, but all they found were small footprints heading off into the forest, and around them and over them the prints of many wolves. There was no blood, but they were sure he was dead._

But she never forgot the story of the lord and the lady and their son.

===

_The lord was devastated and entered into a period of mourning, but the lady was **angry** and when her husband would not help her avenge her son she looked for aid elsewhere in court. The court alchemist taught her how to make an enduring fire and a smoke particularly deadly to wolves, and he also mentioned another man whom he had once shared this information with. The man had used the fire to a nefarious end, but that was years ago now and as no person had been harmed the man had only been whipped, not hanged. She turned to him now for aid and he found for her two other young men to help set the fire that they would need. The lady herself was the one who found the wolves’ den and all its entrances, and she showed these to her cohorts in pleasure for she wanted her revenge badly and it was now spring and the wolves had cubs._

She continued to tell the story to herself, and as she told the story to herself it changed.

_The fire and smoke worked and the lady finally told her husband how she had avenged their son. The forest was safe and quiet for many years, and the lady gave her husband five sons to replace the one they had lost._

She thought she had learned the things the story was meant to teach her, the things her father had meant her to hear.

_The forest was empty, but so was the woman, because what she had not told her husband was that she had found the body of their son. She had ordered the den dug up to make sure all the wolves were dead. The fire had not burned as deeply as she had hoped, but the smoke had done its work. The cubs all lay unburned, but dead, and in among them lay her son._

The forest was safe now, and baby wolves grow into adults just like any other creature.

_She mourned him too, of course, but she buried him there. He had been dead to them already and her other children, one already on its way and more to come after that, would be safer for what she’d done. Some nights she heard the scream of wild animals as fire burned them to death. Some nights she heard the voice of her son among them._

A human life or two was a small price to pay for all the lives that were saved by anticipating trouble.

==

_Years passed and the forest stayed quiet until their children were much grown and they had become soft in their safety, and then rumors of wolves in the forest began again. The lord went out to look for them with his bow and his dog and when he did not come back that first night the lady thought only that he had traveled too far and was staying at some other house for the night. When he did not come back the night after she went in search of him._

She never felt guilty about what she had done.

_She found sign of him midday and followed the trail he had left, but she did not find his body until dusk. It was bloodied and torn to shreds and she did not think or look around her when she dropped to her knees beside him to weep. When their oldest son came looking for them the next day his mother’s body was mostly untouched, but her neck was bloodied and broken, and her face was contorted with such fear he had to cover it in order to bring her body home._

She never felt guilty, but she also never stopped anticipating trouble.

_He searched for the wolf, of course, and finally found and shot it, but by then it was too late. He mounted the wolf’s head on his wall, but he did not keep the pelt because the skin had many places where it was scared as if it had once been burned and then healed. He did keep the pelts of the two younger wolves it traveled with as they were unblemished and beautiful. He made cloaks from them for he and his wife and the cloaks kept them warm that winter and for many winters after._

Wolves always kill in the end.

**Author's Note:**

> Kate is manipulative and horrible, but who do you think she learned it from?
> 
> I was thinking about Gerard and how he teaches what he wants to teach. I was thinking about how careful he is about when and how he gets his own hands dirty. I was thinking about what fairy tales hunters might tell their children, at least in part because I’ve seen several authors do very nice things with the story of Little Red Riding Hood. I was thinking about how Kate doesn’t seem to feel guilty about what she’s done at all, but that I can’t imagine that she didn’t know that she’d left Derek and Laura and Peter alive. And, I don’t know if she was trying to be mean or trying to be nice, but I was thinking about how she must have always known that she might be facing down one of them again, and how she might prepare for that eventuality.
> 
> I wonder what sort of fairy tales Allison was told, and who told them to her.


End file.
